


Second Chance

by luxshine



Series: 7 Sins Challenge [5]
Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxshine/pseuds/luxshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greed. Kevin is a very Greedy man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chance

You’re late,” Kevin said just as the other man sat down. They were almost alone at the dinner, which lessened their chances to be recognized.

“Justin called, I couldn’t just hang up on him,” Chris explained, fiddling with the menu instead of looking at him. After a long pause, he sighed before speaking. “He told me that Backstreet Boys are getting back together.”

“How did he know?”

“Apparently, JC and Howie bumped into each other at a club or something.” Chris sounded defeated. “So it’s true.”

“It’s been almost four years. It was time to do it.” Kevin was looking at Chris intently. “We decided to hire Johnny again.”

“Good to know,” Chris snorted and when he looked up, the scorn was obvious in his eyes. “That’s yet one more excuse I can use when the guys ask me why I don’t want us to record together again just yet.”

“Don’t be like that. I didn’t ask you to disband the group,” Kevin answered, even when he knew it wasn’t exactly the truth.

While ‘As long as you’re in *N Sync I’ll know where to find you’ hadn’t been intended to constitute a threat, it could have made Chris ask for the hiatus to be extended from eight months to the current four years and counting.

“It has been the only thing that worked to keep you away from me.” Chris sighed again.

“If you don’t want me around, why did you call me?” That had been the question in Kevin’s mind ever since he had heard that short message on his answering machine. Before *N Sync’s long hiatus, he had always been the one that had called Chris. During the hiatus, though, he had been true to his word and had only called the other man once.

“I saw you at the April Fool’s show.”

Kevin nodded. While he had taken Chris’s sudden departure from show business as a sign that maybe the other man was serious when he said he didn’t want anything to do with Kevin, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from seeing Chris perform again.

Obviously, his stalking abilities left much to be desired.

“It was a good show,” he said, shrugging.

“It was one song. You left after that,” Chris pointed out. And to that, Kevin had no answer.

The waitress came, took their orders and left before Chris spoke up again.

“What do you want, Kevin?

“A second chance.”

“You got married.” Chris looked at the ceiling before turning his attention to the picture hung on the wall. “That pretty much killed any chance of us getting back together.”

“I loved her,” Kevin said, sincerely. He couldn’t forget the four months he had spent with Chris, especially since those four months could be summed up in barely two weeks of actual time together, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loved his wife when he’d said “I do.”

“Then why did you do all that stuff?” Chris opened his arms, obviously angry. Kevin didn’t have an answer. He knew why he kept calling Chris once the Black and Blue tour started. He knew why he had gone to all the parties where he knew *N Sync was going to be.

But he was sure that telling Chris would kill any hopes of a second chance.

“I wanted to talk,” he settled on saying, even when it was a lie and he hated lying.

“We can talk,” Chris answered, shaking his head. “We can talk about everything _except_ that. I meant it when I said we needed to break it up, and I meant it when I said I don’t fool around with married people.”

“Still, we need to talk,” Kevin insisted. He was going to make Chris understand. He had to.

“No, Kevin.” Chris put his hands up, as a barrier between them both. “I knew what I was getting into when we started… whatever you want to call what we had. Howie pretty much warned me about your control streak. And I was willing to overlook it as long as you didn’t cross a line.”

Kevin looked at his hands on the table. He hadn’t known that Chris had been aware of his controlling habits. Back then _Kevin_ hadn’t been aware that it was a problem. Chris hadn’t been the last one of his loved ones hurt by it.

“I know I shouldn’t have asked you to choose between me and your friends, Chris,” Kevin said after the waitress had returned with their drinks. “But you can’t hold that against me forever. Not when you pretty much disbanded *N Sync because of something I said in a moment of idiocy.”

“We might not be on stage together, but we’re still friends,” Chris muttered.

“Then what is it? Why do you refuse to talk with me, to give me another chance?”

“I found out you were getting married thanks to MTV,” Chris told him, without a hint of emotion. “I know we had broken up, and unlike you I didn’t need a schedule of every minute in your life, but I would have liked to know that you were keeping a girlfriend on the side.”

“Kristen was not… I wasn’t with her when I was with you.”

“That’s good to know. At least I can believe you were not a cheater,” Chris conceded. “But it doesn’t change anything. I want you to leave me alone.”

“I can’t.” Kevin shook his head. “Not until you give me a real chance to make things right.”

Chris looked at him and Kevin could read a myriad of emotions in his ex-lover’s eyes. None of them gave him hope; he saw fear, disappointment and sadness, but not love or even tenderness.

Still, he couldn’t let go of Chris.

“This was a bad idea,” Chris finally said. “I have to go.”

“Chris, wait.” Kevin stood up at the same time that Chris did, grabbing his arm. “You called me, you came to see me alone… You must have thought that maybe we could… fix things…”

“I didn’t come alone,” Chris pointed out to a nearby table. Joey and Lance were watching them in silence. Lance’s eyes were guarded, but Joey looked ready to get up and punch Kevin if he didn’t let Chris go immediately.

Kevin let go of Chris’s arm.

“I’m not giving up,” he told the other man, sitting down again even when Chris didn’t. “I mean it when I say I want a second chance.”

“I know,” Chris said, and left with his friends.

Kevin smiled as he watched Chris’s retreating back.

Because in the end, Chris hadn’t denied that he might get a second chance.

He twirled the wedding ring in his finger.

He always got what he wanted.


End file.
